while i agree in a general sense we're having pretty unprecedented rates of electoral college and popular vote being out of whack. it happened in 2000, fairly close to happening in 2004, Obama crushed so didnt happen, then happened in 2016. that's odd historically. i dont think that we need a change, but if it keeps happening the voices calling for a change will increase. usually this shit happens in an odd close race then disappears for a while. if it happens like 2-3 more time this might get uglier.

and anti-drumpfers would be cackling saying people are too stupid to know the way to win the election

cant lose the series 4-2, winning 2 blowouts and losing 4 close ones and say “well i deserved to win cuz 2 blowouts”

checkmate

lmao

thats the point though: the american electoral system is giving the the rural ares and the 'space' an advantage over the urban centers of population, and this is by design. if it wasnt for the electoral college, the smaller, more rural states would never have joined the union. it is the increasing split in worldview and political preference between rural and urban areas, and the increasing alignment of the two major parties along this divide, that is causing the increase in electoral college - popular vote (or house majority - popular vote) splits in recent years.

Ah yes, the inevitable quarterly lefty/libtard crai-along.

WTF are you babbling about?

it is not a disaster for democracy. as in all first-past-the-post voting systems, it rewards an efficient geographic representation of support. this system is working just fine in the UK, Australia, Canada and some other countries. the real issue with the electoral college in the US is that the blocks that go to the winner of a simple majority are too big. the split between popular vote and electoral college only goes out of hand if a candidate can win a large number of electors by edging out a single narrow win.

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another point to consider is that we dont really know how a presidential race for the popular vote would play out.. say both trump and clinton had campaigned in california and new york, do you think that clinton could have squeezed an even higher margin of victory out of these states, or would trump have cut his losses? same for texas: which side had more untapped voter potential in texas - conservatives or liberals? there are more conservatives in texas, they have a structural majority, but the turnout of democrats in texas is notoriously depressed. I really dont know how such a race would go, and neither does anyone else.

what we do know is that certain smaller states, like iowa and new hampshire, would get less candidate visits in a race for the popular vote. the distribution of candidate attention would without a doubt skew more heavily towards urban areas. by contast, under the current system, we have a healthy mix: candidates campaign in miami, philadelphia, denver and detroit, but also in iowa, new hampshire, ohio and north carolina. with the exception of the west coast and the deep south, the typical playing field encompasses every other type of region and electorate found in the country.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Aug 17 2018 04:01pm

I'm "babbling about" the once every 3 months or so, attack on the Electoral College. It's always the same half informed ridiculous crying BS. I've seen 3 or 4 of them already, here in PaRD.



/e <insert .jpg of crying voters after the 2016 election>

This post was edited by Ghot on Aug 17 2018 04:04pm

I would keep the Electoral College, but implement the Wyoming Rule (where the population of the least populous state is used as the baseline for elector distribution) to make electors represent an equal portion of the population across states, rather than it being equated to each state's representation in Congress (plus DC).

Using this rule with the current populations of the US as a whole, and Wyoming in particular, the number of electors would go up to about 562 (an increase of 24).

This post was edited by Surfpunk on Aug 17 2018 04:07pm